Monday, May 18, 2015

End of Christianity?

Recently,
on Facebook, several folks who I met by writing this blog on religious history
began to advocate for the end of Christianity.They insist the world would be a better place.

They
are wrong.

In
the first place, the disappearance of one religion only ensures the birth of a
new one or the takeover of an existing one.All societies in history developed religious beliefs.Recent studies have suggested that religious
ideas are literally built into our brains.

Besides,
the Facebook folks have chosen the wrong target.They
are attacking a religion.That’s not the
problem.Christianity, like all
religions, has decayed in the face of history and science.Pious stories don’t add up.Mythology has overtaken reality.However, the falloff isn’t that extreme:About 72 percent of Americans still think of
themselves as Christians, although only 25 percent are active in churches and
their faith.

Such figures are really only of interest to statisticians and sociologists.

My
friends aren't looking at the data either, but at what devout Christians are
trying to do.They could care less about
the religion; they just don’t want Christian teachings and stories stuffed into
them.They see community leaders pushing
Christian concepts as if such ideas are not beliefs but proven truths.They listen to elected officials cite the
Bible as if it’s established fact.

That's why they want to see Christianity disappear. They are missing a key point: What
makes them think the same things wouldn’t recur if Christianity ceased to
exist?

Modern Zealot

Historically,
every religion that gained a dominant position has tried to impose its
teachings on the population.On behalf
of their chosen deity, they will murder opposition.In the Bible, for example, Phineas is
credited for being zealous for the Lord after killing a Jewish man and his non-Jewish female companion when Judaism banned intermarriage.

The
canonical book of Ruth, in which heroic King David is identified as the product
of intermarriage, was written to counter religious support of Phineas’ kind of
lethal behavior.

ISIS with murdered victims

In
the Middle Ages, murderous European Christians happily killed pagans, Jews,
Muslims and everyone else, including other Christians, who didn’t follow the
dominant Roman Catholic faith.

In
the Middle East, we’re watching the same effort to place people under religious
control, this time by rampaging zealots under the umbrella term ISIS who are
brutally massacring nonbelievers in their form of Islam.The same thing is happening in Africa with
Boko Haram.

Such
groups are advocating a modern form of Nazism: the horrific belief that everyone
else is dispensable simply because they don’t belong to the “elite” group.Such an approach divides everyone into “us”
and “they.”Any nonbelievers face
extermination.

As
a result, ending Christianity then would accomplish nothing.It would simply give an opening for
extremists of any faith to march through.

Mother Tersa

Moreover,
Christianity isn’t “wrong.”No belief
is.It’s only wrong to
nonbelievers.And, the faith has
engendered incredible acts of love and charity, such as Mother Teresa’ heroic efforts
among the poor in India.Religion makes
such loving efforts possible.All
religions honor those who willingly sacrifice themselves on the behest of the
downtrodden and needy.

Finally,
religion has long served as societal glue, a philosophy that underpins human
efforts to live together.The late
religious historian Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan pointed out that Western civilization
would be nothing without Christianity.That view is correct, and it’s also true of any culture.Belief in gods empowered the Egyptian, Greek,
Roman and other societies.

Christianity
still could disappear.After all, who
believes in Osiris anymore? Dionysus?Zeus?Christianity has no anchor
or claim to immortality.It has only
existed for less than 2,000 years anyway, a merely fraction of human existence.In a few years, however, the next generation
of Facebook friends probably would be calling for the elimination of whatever faith
replaced it.

Any
belief may die out.Religion is not going
anywhere.

Long-time
religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious
history.He also speaks at various
religious organizations throughout Florida.You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.He is the author of the famed Unauthorized
Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel
Writers Get Their Information; Noel:
The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols;and Dummies Guide to Comparative
Religion.His books are available on Amazon.com,
Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.He can also be followed on Twitter.

You
can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at
http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

About Me

During his career, Bill has been a newspaper reporter, magazine writer/editor, advertising copywriter and writer/editor of NASCAR programs, among other jobs. He has won three international awards for stories and programs while working for International Speedway Corp. and was named 2000 Florida Feature Writer of the Year.
He has published four books to date and his writing has appeared in hundreds of local, regional, state and national publications.